Fortnightly - Better Placehttp://www.fortnightly.com/tags/better-place
enThe Transformation Mythhttp://www.fortnightly.com/fortnightly/2011/06/transformation-myth
<div class="field field-name-field-import-deck field-type-text-long field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Deck:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Telecom-style revolution is beyond our reach.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-byline field-type-text-long field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Byline:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Michael T. Burr, Editor-in-Chief</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-category field-type-text field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Frontlines</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-bio field-type-text-long field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Author Bio:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span class="s1"><strong>Michael T. Burr</strong> is <em>Fortnightly’s</em> editor-in-chief. Email him at </span><span class="s2"><a href="mailto:burr@pur.com">burr@pur.com</a>.</span></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-volume field-type-node-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Magazine Volume:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Fortnightly Magazine - June 2011</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Midway through my career as a magazine editor, I took a detour from covering the electricity industry and went to work for the <i>Telephony</i> magazine group in Chicago. The year was 2000, and the dot-com boom was at its peak. New companies were going public every day, raising billions of dollars in equity capital. Growth seemed unstoppable, and I was excited to be writing about such a dynamic industry.</p>
<p>Then the dot-com bubble burst, erasing billions of dollars in market capitalization within several months. Dozens of upstart carriers went bankrupt, taking some industry stalwarts down with them. The hardware that companies had installed was now largely redundant. Shiny new data centers sat empty; massive fiber optic networks stayed dark. The telecom market dried up, and after less than two years covering telecom, my job was eliminated.</p>
<p>I left Chicago in late 2001, came to work for <i>Fortnightly</i>, and I’ve never looked back. But in the intervening years I’ve kept an eye on what’s happening in the telecom industry, and now it seems the dot-com bust was just a correction in an over-inflated market. Telecom services have continued growing at a healthy pace—although not along the trajectory that started in the late 1990s. Instead of competitive local exchange carriers (CLEC) taking over the world one office building or apartment complex at a time, market domination has been achieved by a few major wireless carriers, selling voice and data plans through every imaginable channel, from shopping-mall kiosks to online retailers. Their growth has been propelled by mind-boggling proliferation in value-added products and services from companies like Apple, Google and Amazon.</p>
<p>The telecom revolution provides some good object lessons. It teaches us that bubbles always burst, but sometimes they leave behind a more sustainable market.</p>
<p>And a more subtle lesson is this: In the information age, big growth doesn’t come from putting steel in the ground. It comes from innovation—<i>i.e.</i>, creating new products and services that provide real value that didn’t exist before. Such innovation differentiates one company’s offerings from those of its market rivals, and that’s what justifies a price premium.</p>
<p>The question now is this: How do we apply these lessons to America’s partially and inconsistently regulated electric utility industry, which seems to be on the cusp of its own revolution? What value can we create that didn’t exist before?</p>
<h4>Less Isn’t More</h4>
<p>When I hear people invoke the telecom revolution as an analogy for the utility industry’s putative transformation, I always cringe, because I don’t believe the analogy works.</p>
<p>In the telecom market, federal-level deregulation opened the door to competition across the country. The first competitive battleground was the long-distance market, and the first value-added innovation was the prepaid calling card. The Baby Bells had never thought of selling prepaid cards, in part because they were happy charging extortionist rates for collect calls. (Remember those?) So deregulation brought innovation and drove prices down.</p>
<p>Next came an explosion in innovative telephones, with new features and designs, offered in a rainbow of colors that Ma Bell wouldn’t have approved. Then came Internet service, with AOL bringing the Web within reach of every phone line, and thousands of Internet service providers subsequently turning dial-up and DSL access into a new consumer service business. The market exploded with Web 2.0-based online applications, and next came cell phones, smart-phone apps and ultimately the wireless operating-system wars (Apple iOS vs. Google Android vs. RIM Blackberry etc.). As I write this, I’m using my Sprint HTC Evo as a wi-fi hotspot; an inconceivable idea before telecom deregulation.</p>
<p>Now try to imagine an equivalent for any of this in the electric power industry. Even if Congress were to impose a national regulatory model that opened every utility territory to retail competition—a heretical idea in today’s context—what could we possibly create that allows consumers to use electricity in a fundamentally new way? How could electricity service deliver entirely new value that didn’t exist before? What’s the electric-industry equivalent of an iPhone?</p>
<p>It’s not demand response, dynamic pricing, or even energy management, because those things don’t add a speck of value to the utility service. Rather, they’re tools for managing the service that utilities have been delivering for decades. Smart metering and time-of-use pricing are important advancements, but will they improve the customer’s life? No, and if we’re being honest, we must acknowledge they might worsen customers’ lives, by requiring them to do something extra in order to keep the electricity coming as reliably and cheaply as it did before.</p>
<p>Utilities are struggling to come to grips with this fact, even as they try to educate and engage customers in the smart grid transition. As Itron’s Tim Wolf told <i>Fortnightly</i> in this month’s cover story, “[Customers will ask] why do things need to change? The answer might be that things need to change in order to remain the same. If you want energy resources to be efficient, affordable and reliable … then we have to put more intelligence into the system and run it more efficiently.” <i>(See “<a href="http://www.fortnightly.com/fortnightly/2011/06/growing-pains">Growing Pains</a>.”) </i></p>
<p>We might argue that intelligence itself adds value, particularly to the degree it allows consumers to do things like automate the operation of various appliances in their homes. However, home automation is enabled by network communications—not generating plants and power lines. So really it’s just another telecom service that happens to connect with some utility systems, and perhaps the utility company can offer it as part of a retail service. This might be interesting and profitable as far as it goes, but it’s hardly a transformational change.</p>
<p>So what does that leave?</p>
<h4>Electrifying Transportation</h4>
<p>There’s one innovation in this industry that can be called truly transformative: smart charging for electric vehicles (EV).</p>
<p>EVs represent an entirely new way to use electricity, and already we’re seeing competition among various players to figure out the best ways to deliver recharging services. EV charging raises a host of questions and challenges that must be resolved, and each solution could spawn new products and services that don’t exist today <i>(see “<a href="http://www.fortnightly.com/fortnightly/2011/06/top-10-ev-challenges">Top 10 EV Challenges</a>.”)</i>. By any definition, that’s creating value.</p>
<p>Now, playing devil’s advocate, I might argue that EVs themselves don’t create new value, because they don’t let their owners do anything they couldn’t do with gas-powered cars. Thus the telecom analogy breaks down yet again; EVs aren’t the equivalent of the smart phone. However, I don’t think this distinction matters. Shifting value from the petroleum economy into the electricity economy still leads to growth and transformation in our industry, just as if it were an entirely new service.</p>
<p>The really operative question, then, is who will create this value and thereby achieve Google-scale growth? Will it be an energy company like NRG Energy, which launched an EV charging network called “eVgo” last November and has already installed dozens of charging stations in Dallas and Houston? Will it be an upstart like Better Place, which is working with auto makers and governments to roll out comprehensive charging and battery-swap infrastructure in places like Israel and Denmark? Or will it be some currently unknown software developer, working in a basement, who creates a wireless app that delivers the entire smart charging service (and handles billions of dollars in energy transactions) via any outlet or charging station?</p>
<p>Importantly, none of these examples depends on either a regulated utility franchise or a deregulated utility market. Yet their models all imply some degree of transformation in the way electricity is bought and delivered—and huge opportunities for the innovators who drive that transformation forward.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"><h3 class="field-label">Category (Actual): </h3><ul class="links"><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-0"><a href="/article-categories/strategy-planning">Strategy &amp; Planning</a></li><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-1"><a href="/article-categories/evs-storage">EVs &amp; Storage</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-field-members-only field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Viewable to All?:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-featured field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Is Featured?:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-department field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"><h3 class="field-label">Department: </h3><ul class="links"><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-0"><a href="/department/frontlines">Frontlines</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-picture field-type-image field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Image Picture:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.fortnightly.com/sites/default/files/article_images/1106/images/1106-FR.jpg" width="678" height="833" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-fortnightly-40 field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Is Fortnightly 40?:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-law-lawyers field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Is Law &amp; Lawyers:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix">
<div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div>
<div class="field-items">
<a href="/tags/amazon">Amazon</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/apple">Apple</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/better-place">Better Place</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/clec">CLEC</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/congress">Congress</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/ev">EV</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/ev-charging-network">EV charging network</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/evgo">eVgo</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/evs">EVs</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/google">Google</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/growing-pains">Growing Pains</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/internet-service-providers">Internet service providers</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/itron">Itron</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/nrg">NRG</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/nrg-energy">NRG Energy</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/smart-meter">Smart meter</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/smart-metering">Smart metering</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/tim-wolf">Tim Wolf</a> </div>
</div>
Wed, 01 Jun 2011 04:00:00 +0000puradmin14090 at http://www.fortnightly.comVendor Neutralhttp://www.fortnightly.com/fortnightly/2010/12/vendor-neutral
<div class="field field-name-field-import-deck field-type-text-long field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Deck:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-byline field-type-text-long field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Byline:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-category field-type-text field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Vendor Neutral</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-bio field-type-text-long field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Author Bio:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-volume field-type-node-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Magazine Volume:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Fortnightly Magazine - December 2010</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Lockheed Martin teams with Tendril; Pattern Energy 101 MW wind plant starts operating; Alstom to supply steam equipment to GWF plant; Siemens wins government efficiency contract; GE Jenbacher introduces high-efficiency gas engine; OpenADR Alliance forms; Better Place gets into San Francisco taxis; EnerNOC enters TransAmerica Pyramid; and more. </p>
<h4>Generation </h4>
<p><b>American Capital Energy</b> began installing one of North America’s largest rooftop solar arrays at the <b>GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Northeast</b> regional distribution center in York, Pa. When the 3 MW project is completed, nearly 11,000 solar panels are expected to generate approximately 3.4 million kWh of electricity per year, which GSK says is enough to supply the facility’s annual electricity needs. The project was supported by a $1 million grant from Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Financing Authority and $4.1 million in federal tax credits. GSK also plans to offset its costs by selling solar renewable energy credits (REC). GSK says it recently completed four other solar panel projects at its facilities in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Belgium and Singapore, and that it plans to install solar panels at its Fresno, Calif., distribution center in the spring of 2011. </p>
<p><b>Alstom</b> signed a contract with U.S. independent power producer GWF Energy to supply heat recovery steam generators and a steam turbine to GWF’s power plant in Tracy, Calif. The project, which will convert the Tracy facility from a 169 MW gas-fired peaking plant to a 336 MW combined-cycle plant, will increase the plant’s efficiency while providing operational flexibility to support GWF’s power purchase agreement with Pacific Gas &amp; Electric. The expanded plant is expected to begin commercial operation in 2012. </p>
<p>Alstom and <b>EDP Renewables</b> completed the Le Mée wind farm in La Centre Région, France. The 18 MW farm consists of six 3 MW Alstom ECO 100 wind turbines. The wind farm is the third in the region to be commissioned in less than a year using Alstom’s 3 MW turbine technology. By the end of the year Alstom says it will have commissioned 27 ECO 100 turbines for EDP in the region, with a generating capacity exceeding 80 MW. </p>
<p><b>Toyota Tsusho Corp. </b>entered the U.S. market in natural gas-fired power plants by acquiring from GE Energy Financial Services an indirect ownership stake in the Oyster Creek Cogeneration Plant in Freeport, Texas, for about U.S. $100 million. Toyota Tsusho, acting through a North American subsidiary, bought a 45 percent interest in the plant. The Oyster Creek transaction marks the first partnership between Toyota Tsusho and GE Energy Financial Services in thermal power assets. </p>
<p><b>The American Wind Energy Association</b> (AWEA) formed the <b>Distributed Wind Energy Association</b> (DWEA), which focuses on advocacy and education to promote the on-site generation and consumption of distributed wind energy. </p>
<p><b>Solar Frontier</b>, a manufacturer of thin film solar technology based on the elements copper, indium, selenium, gallium, and sulfur, announced that it has signed an agreement to jointly develop thin film solar cell technology with IBM based on the elements copper, zinc, tin, sulfur, and selenium. This joint development will couple IBM’s groundbreaking research with Solar Frontier’s thin film development and manufacturing capabilities to create a cost competitive solar technology that uses earth-abundant materials. </p>
<p><b>AllEarth Renewables</b>, a Vermont manufacturer of grid-connected wind turbines and solar tracking systems, received a contract from <b>Chittenden County Solar Partners</b> to install 382 AllSun Trackers at a solar farm in South Burlington, Vt. The installation will be the largest solar array to date in the state of Vermont and is scheduled to begin operations by early 2011. </p>
<p><b>RMK Solar</b> began building one of the largest ground-based solar energy systems in Pennsylvania, under contract with pretzel maker <b>Snyder’s of Hanover</b>. When completed the solar farm will include more than 15,000 panels spanning 26 acres, directly across from the Snyder’s of Hanover corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility in Hanover, Pa. </p>
<p><b>Pattern Energy Group</b> says the 101.2 MW Hatchet Ridge wind project in Burney, Calif., is now operational and selling electricity to PG&amp;E under a 15-year power purchase agreement. RES America Construction built the wind farm infrastructure, while <b>Siemens</b> erected 44 of its SWT-2.3-93 wind turbines, equipped with blades manufactured in Fort Madison, Iowa. Ameron International of Fontana, Calif., supplied turbine towers. Pattern Energy says the 101.2 MW wind energy project is the only large-scale wind project in California to reach operation this year. </p>
<p><b>Airstreams Renewables, Inc.</b> (ARI) announced plans to build a 20,000 square-foot renewable energy training center on a 33-acre parcel that ARI owns in Tehachapi, Calif. The training center will be located adjacent to a 1.5 to 2 MW solar park that a solar developer plans to build on 14 acres of ARI’s land, under lease for 33 years. Project construction is scheduled to begin in 2013. Additionally, ARI plans to significantly expand its ENSA North America subsidiary across the U.S. and Canada and to deploy additional mobile training facilities, in addition to hiring and training technical trainers. </p>
<p><b>GE’s Jenbacher</b> announced the development of a new power-generation gas engine, the J920 engine, with electrical efficiency of 48.7 percent and an output of 9.5 MW. GE says the new engine will emit 1,500 tons of CO2 per year less than a comparable engine. </p>
<p>The <b>Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement</b> (BOEMRE), the <b>Department of Energy</b> (DOE), and the Department of Commerce’s <b>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</b> (NOAA) announced eight joint research awards totaling nearly $5 million to support the responsible siting and permitting of offshore wind energy facilities and ocean energy generated from waves, tides, currents and thermal gradients. The following projects were selected for awards: 1) Parametrix, Auburn, Wash., $499,000 to apply probabilistic statistical methods to evaluate ocean renewable energy siting proposals; 2) Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Bioacoustics Research Program, Ithaca, N.Y., $499,000 to study how offshore alternative energy (OAE) activities affect marine vertebrates; 3) University of Rhode Island, Kingston R.I., $745,000 to develop standardized data protocols for specific offshore renewable energy issues; 4) University of Washington-School of Aquatic and Fishery Scientists, Seattle, Wash., $746,000 to evaluate acoustic technologies for studying animal populations at a proposed hydrokinetic site; 5) Pacific Energy Ventures, Portland, Ore., $499,000 to build an environmental data protocol framework for evaluating offshore renewable energy projects; 6) University of Arkansas Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies, Fayetteville, Ark., $497,000 to develop a spatial layout system to design, analyze and visualize offshore renewable energy projects; 7) University of Texas at Austin-Bureau of Economic Geology, Austin, Texas, $497,000 to compile information needed to establish best management practices for U.S. offshore geologic sequestration; and 8) University of Massachusetts—Marine Renewable Energy Center, Dartmouth, Mass., $748,000 for spatial survey technologies, assessment and post-development monitoring of offshore renewable energy resources and facilities. </p>
<p><b>Princeton Properties Management</b> installed a second-phase solar energy system on its apartment community in Salem, Mass. The Princeton Properties apartment community in Salem is one of the largest single-site solar projects in the state’s history. </p>
<h4>T&amp;D </h4>
<p><b>Telogis</b> introduced Telogis Fleet 8, a GPS-based fleet management software designed to help fleet managers to integrate planning and operational data, field variables and location-based intelligence to make informed field-force deployment decisions. </p>
<p><b>Jacobs Engineering Group</b> received a contract from <b>Bonneville Power Administration</b> (BPA) to provide on-site construction administration and inspection services to build and replace transmission lines, substations and ancillary communications projects. </p>
<p>The <b>U.S. Department of Energy</b> announced the offer of a conditional commitment for a $350 million loan guarantee to develop the One Nevada Transmission Line (ON Line), the first transmission line project to be offered a conditional commitment by the loan programs office of the Department of Energy. ON Line consists of a new 500 kilovolt (kV) AC transmission line that will run 235 miles, with a new substation located at the northern end of the line. The project will carry approximately 600 MW of electricity, including renewable energy resources, and is expected to integrate existing transmission systems while improving grid reliability and efficiency. </p>
<p><b>Survalent Technology</b> commissioned a new supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system for the City of Marceline, Mo. The new SmartSCADA system incorporates many of Survalent’s advanced system applications, including: event data recording, IED Wizard, control panel, SCADA add-in for MS Excel and Access, and remote alarm annunciation. </p>
<p><b>Survalent</b> also installed a new SCADA system for Dothan Utilities, headquartered in Dothan, Ala. The new system was provided under a turnkey contract by Survalent with complete database and graphics for 40 sites. The system included Survalent’s WebSurv solution, an application to serve real-time SCADA information to users via web browser, and without the need for custom installation or maintenance. </p>
<p><b>Sioux Valley Energy</b> released Full Spectrum’s FullMax mobile broadband system for its private wide-area mission mobile data needs. The FullMax system is used for energy related mobile workforce management applications. </p>
<p><b>Alstom Grid</b> was selected to provide HVDC converter technology for the Tres Amigas SuperStation, a power transmission hub that will link America’s three primary electric transmission grids. </p>
<p><b>ABB</b> won an order worth $20 million from Public Power Corp. (PPC), Greece’s national power utility, to build a 150/20 kV substation in Athens. ABB has turnkey responsibility for design, engineering, supply, and installation of the substation. Key equipment to be supplied includes eight 150kV GIS bays, three 150/20kV 100 MVA (megavolt ampere) power transformers as well as 150 arc-proof type switchgear panels. The substation will also be equipped with an IEC 61850 substation automation system to facilitate open communication between the numerous control and protection devices. </p>
<h4>SmartGrid </h4>
<p>The <b>OpenADR Alliance</b> has been formed to accelerate industry adoption of an automated demand response (ADR) standard for smart grid technologies. Smart grid standards for ADR are aimed at reducing the cost, improving the reliability, and accelerating the speed of DR and smart grid implementations across the United States. The alliance is supported by Honeywell, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Pacific Gas &amp; Electric, and Southern California Edison. </p>
<p>The <b>International Electrotechnical Commission</b> (IEC) announced it will launch its online <b>IEC Smart Grid Standard Mapping Solution</b>, an interactive tool that creates a map of the smart grid and enables smart grid managers to identify IEC smart grid standards, by the end of 2010 or early 2011. </p>
<p><b>Tendril</b> and <b>Lockheed Martin</b> announced they will be working to integrate Lockheed Martin’s SEEload demand response management solution with Tendril’s energy management platform. The integration enables utilities to deploy programs based on the new Open ADR standard. </p>
<p><b>Bridge Energy</b> will serve as the smart grid integration partner for Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC). OUC will start integrating meter data management (MDM), customer information system (CIS) and outage management system (OMS) applications as part of a broader smart grid initiative. Bridge will use its eFame methodology to integrate OUC’s newly acquired eMeter MDM application with OUC’s existing CIS and OMS applications across distributed locations. Bridge’s Bridge says eFame is its system for performing strategic assessment, developing smart grid strategy, evaluating vendor products and implementing application integration. </p>
<p><b>Powerhouse Dynamics</b> recently released eMonitor, a home energy management system that alerts users to critical items with their power usage. eMonitor connects to a home’s circuit panel and enables users to view the home’s power consumption, phantom power loss and carbon footprint. </p>
<p><b>WeatherBug</b> announced the launch of WeatherBug Smart Grid Solutions, a group of applications using real-time, hyper-local weather intelligence to improve efficiency across utility systems. </p>
<h4>EVs &amp; Storage </h4>
<p><b>GoSmart Technologies</b> finished installing ChargeSPOT networked electric vehicle (EV) charging equipment at a data center being built in North Carolina. The data center, which was designed to achieve LEED Platinum certification, is owned by an unnamed Fortune 500 company. </p>
<h4>People </h4>
<p>The <b>Solar Electric Power Association</b> elected <b>Janet Gagnon</b> and <b>Lisa Frantzis</b> to its board of directors. Gagnon heads government relations and lobbying efforts for SolarWorld, and serves on the boards of directors for the Solar Energy Industries Associaton, the Solar Alliance, CalSEIA, CoSEIA, and NYSEIA. Frantzis is managing director of the renewable and distributed energy practice at <b>Navigant Consulting</b>. </p>
<p>The <b>National Institute of Standards and Technology</b> (NIST) named new members of the GridWise Alliance to its newly formed Smart Grid Advisory Committee. The Alliance members appointed to the board include: <b>Jon Arnold</b>, managing director of Microsoft’s worldwide power and utilities industry business; <b>Lawrence E. Jones</b>, Alstom Grid’s director, strategy and special projects worldwide; <b>Terry Mohn</b>, founder and chief strategy officer at General MicroGrids; and <b>Simon Pontin</b>, v.p. for development at Itron’s Oconee manufacturing facility. </p>
<p><b>Steptoe &amp; Johnson</b> added new attorneys to the firm’s practice. <b>K. Jason Lucas</b> joins the firm’s Wheeling, W.V., office and focuses his practice in the area of energy law. <b>Diana S. Prulhiere</b> joins the firm’s Charleston, W.V., office, focusing her practice in the area of environmental law. </p>
<p><b>Vertex</b> appointed <b>Barry Shurkey</b> as global head of applications. Shurkey is responsible for leading the Vertex global applications team as it develops industry-specific IT applications. </p>
<h4>M&amp;A &amp; Finance </h4>
<p><b>ITOCHU</b> and <b>General Electric</b> completed the first transaction under their collaboration agreement by making a co-investment in the estimated $319 million CPV Keenan II wind farm under construction in Oklahoma. GE Energy sold a portion of its $65 million preferred equity interest in the wind farm to Tyr Keenan II, an indirect subsidiary of ITOCHU. This co-investment is the first transaction under the collaboration and cooperation agreement that GE and ITOCHU finalized in May to identify co-investment opportunities in renewable energy worldwide. </p>
<p><b>Allegiance Capital</b> facilitated <b>T&amp;D Solutions</b>’ acquisition of<b> E&amp;R Inc.</b>, a power line maintenance services company based in North Carolina. Terms of the private transaction weren’t disclosed. </p>
<p><b>Ice Energy</b>, which provides smart grid-enabled distributed energy storage systems, closed a $24 million Series C financing. The equity investment—from TIAA-CREF, Energy Capital Partners, Good Energies, Sail Ventures and Second Avenue Partners—provides Ice Energy with working and growth capital to support its deployment of utility-scale distributed energy storage projects. TIAA-CREF’s $4.5 million portion is its first under a new green building technology partnership with Good Energies. </p>
<p><b>1366 Technologies</b>, a solar technology manufacturer, closed a $20 million Series B financing, bringing the company’s total amount raised to $37.55 million. Korea’s Hanwha Chemical and Ventizz Capital Fund IV joined returning investors North Bridge Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners in backing the company. </p>
<h4>Energy Services </h4>
<p><b>Stream Energy</b> has begun operations in the Pennsylvania electricity market and recently started accepting residential customers’ requests for service in the PPL service area in southwestern Pennsylvania. </p>
<p><b>Gateway Energy</b> announced its fixed-rate offer for electricity, which the company says provides 10 percent savings for residents when compared with PECO’s first-quarter price to compare. Gateway says its 8.9 cents/kWh fixed rate is guaranteed through June 30, 2011. </p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"><h3 class="field-label">Category (Actual): </h3><ul class="links"><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-0"><a href="/article-categories/generation-markets">Generation &amp; Markets</a></li><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-1"><a href="/article-categories/td-grid">T&amp;D Grid</a></li><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-2"><a href="/article-categories/finance">Finance</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-field-members-only field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Viewable to All?:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-featured field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Is Featured?:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-department field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"><h3 class="field-label">Department: </h3><ul class="links"><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-0"><a href="/department/vendor-neutral">Vendor Neutral</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix">
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</div>
Wed, 01 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0000puradmin13567 at http://www.fortnightly.comTipping Pointhttp://www.fortnightly.com/fortnightly/2010/06/tipping-point
<div class="field field-name-field-import-deck field-type-text-long field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Deck:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Industry giants start the EV revolution.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-byline field-type-text-long field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Byline:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Steven Andersen</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-bio field-type-text-long field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Author Bio:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><b>Steven Andersen</b> is a <i>Fortnightly</i> contributor based in New York.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-volume field-type-node-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Magazine Volume:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Fortnightly Magazine - June 2010</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Who killed the electric car? Well, as it turns out, the body never was found.</p>
<p>A lot has happened in the four years since a biting documentary film lamented the electric vehicle’s (EV) demise. Automakers and utilities have launched an unprecedented collaboration—to build and market a car that will never visit a gas station. Later this year the first mass-market, fully electric car—the Nissan Leaf—rolls onto showroom floors. Many other models will follow.</p>
<p>“We are definitely at the tipping point,” says Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan. “The question is whether it will be a gradual or a rapid transition, and I don’t know if anybody really knows that answer.” In some regions, utilities expect rapid growth in EV sales.</p>
<p>“Our mid- to high-case range is 100,000 to 200,000 cars by 2015,” says Ted Craver, CEO of Southern California Edison. “By 2020 we’re looking at between 450,000 and 1 million cars—and this just covers our service territory.”</p>
<p>It’s difficult to overstate the impact on the nation’s utilities of tens of millions of EVs—each one a roving reservoir of stored electric power.</p>
<p>EVs’ most enthusiastic proponents envision a future in which cars are charged overnight—ideally by off-peak wind generation—and driven to work where the battery is topped off by on-site solar panels. At peak hours, vehicle-to-grid (V2G) transfer would allow utilities to pull small amounts of energy out of cars to shave load, effectively turning customers into micro-vendors. This scenario would of course necessitate smart pricing, robust wireless communication, distributed generation, advanced metering infrastructure, and, incidentally, a whole new business model for utilities.</p>
<p>There’s some disagreement over which parts of that vision ultimately will come to pass and when, but the challenge isn’t a question of technology.</p>
<p>“We understand that every one of these things is do-able, we’ve already done a lot of it with OnStar,” says Britta Gross, GM’s director of global energy systems and infrastructure commercialization. “It’s really a no-brainer to take power off these batteries; in fact, we do this every day in battery labs.”</p>
<p>North America’s regulatory patchwork is a hurdle, no doubt, as is the challenge of harmonizing communications standards across several industries, but the biggest x-factor might be the person at the heart of this futurist’s fantasy: the driver. How consumers choose to interact with their EVs will go a long way toward shaping the market for the auto industry, for utilities, and for the rapidly sprouting third-party vendors in the EV space. And those drivers are about to get behind the wheel.</p>
<h4>Learning Curve</h4>
<p>Since the earliest days of the automobile, the industry has focused almost exclusively on the internal combustion engine. The fuel source, while not necessarily an afterthought, wasn’t particularly difficult to understand. Gasoline formulations evolve and the oil market fluctuates, but it’s nothing compared to the Byzantine complexities of the utility world.</p>
<p>“We’ve had to learn a lot about the auto industry, but it’s probably a bigger learning curve for them to learn about us,” says Michael Rowand, director of technology strategy at Duke Energy. “Our rate structures, our planning issues, our regulatory environment is completely foreign to them.”</p>
<p>Misconceptions and gross simplifications actually ran both ways, initially. Car companies thought of electricity simply as fuel, with little understanding of how utilities make money, the vagaries of rate commissions and state regulators or the nuances of investor, public and cooperative ownership. By the same token, utilities often compared EVs to appliances, not fully considering that these machines draw power at varying voltage and intermittent times, then drive across town and plug in somewhere else—completely unlike a clothes dryer or air conditioner.</p>
<p>But while the two industries have important differences, they share one critical commonality:</p>
<p>“They’re both giant, capital-intensive industries that take a long time to fundamentally change,” says Mark Duvall, director of electric transportation at the Electric Power Research Institute.</p>
<p>But the seeming inevitability of EVs taking “a long time” was a luxury neither side could afford. By the middle of the last decade, decision makers in both industries acknowledged that collaberation was needed to craft technical standards and devlop a common vocabulary. In 2007, the Infrastructure Working Council (IWC) was convened to bridge the gap.</p>
<p>Managed by EPRI on behalf of the industry stakeholders who fund it, the IWC set about collating the various efforts of industries and regulators to develop EV standards. The first challenge: a universal charger.</p>
<h4>Starting With the Plug</h4>
<p>“The automotive companies and the utility companies made it very clear that there needed to be one single connector standard throughout North America, whether you plug your car into 120 volts or 240 volts,” says Duvall. “It had to be simple and cheap and safe and every vehicle had to be able to plug into every charge station.”</p>
<p>The IWC went to work, along with the Society of Automotive Engineers, to design a universal charging system. The result, after a two-year effort, was a standard device for connecting the car to the grid, known as the Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE), able to accommodate different types of EVs with varied requirements for battery charging.</p>
<p>For the Chevy Volt, for example, a plug-in hybrid set to go on sale in December, and which will travel only a short distance on battery power, drivers can make do with a so called “Level 1” charge—basically a standard wall socket using existing wiring—but only so long as they aren’t in a hurry. That’s because the full charge at 120 volts will take about eight hours.</p>
<p>A faster charge—whether for a fully elecric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid with an auxillary internal combustion engine—would require a 240-volt “Level 2” charge. The EVSE connector will work for both.</p>
<p>“It’s a very good standard, it takes into account a lot of vehicles,” Duvall says. “People call them chargers, even companies that make them call them chargers, but they’re not technically chargers in my mind because they don’t convert power. EVSE provides AC electricity to the vehicle and the vehicle has an AC to DC converter on board that charges the battery.”</p>
<p>A certified EVSE will require professional installation, but utilities are working to make the process easy for customers.</p>
<p>“It currently would take 30 to 50 days to go through the full process of having a residential charging installation,” Craver says. “You have to get the thing permitted and inspected— there’s actually many steps involved in getting one of these higher level chargers into the home. We’re trying to make sure we’ve got a process that’s as streamlined as possible.”</p>
<p>That’s not just a matter of customer satisfaction. Utilities need to know where on the grid the high-draw EVs will be, to avoid overloads on local transformers.</p>
<p>“If you own a plug-in Prius and you change it out for a Nissan Leaf, you might go overnight from a 1.4-kW, level-one, 120-volt charge to a 6.6-kW, 240-volt charge,” says Rowand. “It’s not the same as changing out one air conditioner for another.”</p>
<p>Despite such complexities, the collaboration around EVSE has been impressive. All parties seem genuinely proud of how effectively, and quickly, the various IWC stakeholders have been able to solve common problems. It’s a huge first step for making widespread EV adoption viable—and it’s something genuinely new.</p>
<p>“We didn’t have that with the last generation of vehicles,” says Gross. “We quibbled, and couldn’t agree. This was approached as a joint industry collaborative effort; that’s made a big difference. And the next big part to check off is where we’re headed with communication standards.”</p>
<h4>Two-Way Data Highway</h4>
<p>Realizing the true potential of EVs requires advanced wireless communication that allows utilities to manage these rolling batteries—to keep track of their location on the grid, control the time, speed and rate at which they are charged, and perhaps eventually control V2G functions. The IWC is working on it, but a communication standard is 12 to 18 months off. In a way, though, the timing is perfect.</p>
<p>“The great news is that what might look like confusion is actually a fantastic opportunity,” Gross says. “The utility sector didn’t have anything cast in concrete on the smart-grid communication protocols, and of course on our side it was a blank piece of paper, too. How fortuitous! This kind of luck doesn’t happen so often, where you actually have the ability to do the right thing from the start.”</p>
<p>The first generation of EVs and plug-in hybrids won’t be equipped with wireless that connects directly to utilities, although the EVSE can be networked to provide some load-shaping capabilities. Some cars rolling off the assembly lines can be set to charge at off-peak hours, much like a programmable thermostat. Managing charging for the Leaf even could be performed remotely via cell-phone interface with the vehicle’s navigation system.</p>
<p>Truly robust vehicle communication is a few years away—and for now that’s OK for both industries because it gives them a chance to work out the kinks. The need for advanced communication will grow, however, with the number of EVs on the road (see “Beta Testing Under Fire”).</p>
<p>“If you have 100 million vehicles in the near future, you want them all to be capable of demand response, charging off-peak, detecting price signals and communicating vehicle information,” says Duvall. “There are near-term objectives but there’s a long-term vision that the auto industry and the utility industry have to really work together to support.”</p>
<p>There’s some debate on whether the plug or the car itself is the communication lynchpin. Communicating directly with the car requires utilities to enter a whole new type of customer interface. Making the EVSE the hub requires communications with smart meters, home-area networks and other charging stations.</p>
<p>“Frankly, in the long term it’ll probably be a little bit of both,” Rowand says. “By definition the car will be smart. The Chevy Volt out of the gate will be smarter than any appliance in the house today. The question is whether it’s easier to use a smart plug to achieve the utility goals.”</p>
<p>Networking through the EVSE makes a lot of sense to utilities. It’s just one more step in the smart grid already envisioned. In the short term, most utilities see the primary value of EVs in the context of managing charge. Just being able to control when and how quickly cars are charged will allow utilities to shape the transportation load. But keeping tabs on vehicles in real time would offer more sophisticated data to better predict load requirements. For example, the utility could know that an EV 100 miles from home and low on juice soon would have to plug in somewhere for a fast charge.</p>
<p>Automakers have been communicating with vehicles for years—GM’s OnStar being the best-known system. Mike Tinskey, manager of vehicle electrification and infrastructure at Ford, says that rather than communicating directly with vehicles, utilities could piggyback off the carmaker’s wireless stream.</p>
<p>“We believe a better way to do this is a bridging action, to have our servers talk to the utility servers,” he says. “This really simplifies a complex or a fragmented market for us.”</p>
<p>Ford, which has been in a technology partnership with Microsoft for several years, envisions using the Hohm platform to bridge the gap between utilities and EVs.</p>
<p>“Microsoft could actually talk to a utility that has no smart meters,” Tinskey says. “It knows through that linkage that a vehicle in a given area shouldn’t even try to talk to a smart meter because it doesn’t exist. But even more importantly, it would inform the driver of a tiered rate structure for that area. If you go to Northern California, where PG&amp;E has deployed a tremendous amount of smart meters, and is considering an electric vehicle rate and other rate structures that may change hourly, then the driver needs to have that linkage as well, server to server.”</p>
<p>In a sense, the carmaker becomes a service provider to the utility, tracking the EV’s location and status. Ford has no plans of charging for such services.</p>
<p>“We both need something out of the relationship,” Tinskey says. “They provide us with all of their rate information and the feeds, and in turn we provide them with information about the electric vehicle and its charge schedule. It’s a win-win, and I don’t foresee any dollar transactions. I think it’s the near- to mid-term solution because it offers the most value to the customer and it solves a lot of the issues the utilities are concerned about.”</p>
<h4>Hot Spots for Early Adopters</h4>
<p>For utilities, among the most pressing concerns is predicting the pockets of early adopters. While a plug-in hybrid might be the load equivalent of clothes dryer or plasma-screen TV, even a small concentration of EVs could overwhelm local transformers.</p>
<p>Southern California Edison modeled its EV hot-spots by looking at hybrid ownership in its service area on zip-code basis. It also created a Web site for prospective EV owners providing information they need on things like connection requirements and rate options. The site encourages customers who are ready to buy EVs to “raise their hands early” to help the utility refine its infrastructure preparation.</p>
<p>“We want to make sure we’re ready for customers who really want to own electric vehicles,” Craver says. “We expect Southern California to be one of the largest early adopter areas, so we have to make sure the neighborhood circuits and all the equipment really can absorb the increased load.”</p>
<p>Duke Energy expects EV concentrations in central Indiana, the Triangle region of North Carolina and the Charlotte area. The company expects EVs numbering in the hundreds next year, and thousands in 2012.</p>
<p>“Beyond that we’ll have to see what the market does,” Rowand says. “We’ve done our models based on different adoption rate estimates that are out there. In five years 2 percent to 5 percent of vehicles sold nationally are going to be electric. We’re getting a lot of interest from our customers.”</p>
<p>Rowand says he’d like to see more vehicles faster, and insists it’s essential to make smart charging a part of the mix as early as possible, even if the number of EVs remains low in the next couple of years (<i>see “Mobile Load”</i>).</p>
<p>“Our entire system was built around stationary, predictable loads,” he says. “You tell me the day of the week, the temperature, the relative humidity, size of your home and location, and we do a pretty good job of predicting your load. But with vehicles you have a mobile premise: overnight at home, at work during the day or in a Wal-Mart parking lot for an hour or two. It’s also a variable load. Are you charging at 120 volts? 240? Or potentially even faster than that? We need to make sure the ability to smart charge the vehicle is an expectation from the beginning.”</p>
<h4>Stop and Swap</h4>
<p>How quickly EVs penetrate the transportation market seems to depend most keenly on a single technology: battery storage. The average motorist drives about 40 miles each day. This accounts for the most common excursions; going to work, running errands, picking up the kids and so on. But longer trips are problematic. A weekend getaway or family road trip requires some method of covering longer distances between charges.</p>
<p>The plug-in hybrid provides an intermediary buffer to this problem. Cars such as the Volt can travel 40 miles on electric charge alone, then the gas-electric engine kicks in. But fully electric vehicles don’t have a back up fuel source. If depleted far from home, EVs need either a speedy charge, or a new battery.</p>
<p>Outwardly at least, car companies and utilities both favor the former option. A 240-volt Level 2 charge takes about 3 hours, far too long to spend at a roadside station. But new direct-current fast-charge technology enables a dead battery to get an 80-percent charge in less than half an hour.</p>
<p>“We believe that DC fast charging is the solution,” says Nissan’s Perry. “We’ll be demonstrating DC fast charging in six states beginning in December.”</p>
<p>As impressive as such a fast charge might seem, however, pulling over for 30 minutes every 100 miles would make that trip to grandma’s house a bit of an ordeal. Option B envisions pulling into a station where the spent battery is swapped for a fresh one in less time than it takes to pump a tank of gas. But that scenario raises a key question: who owns the battery?</p>
<p>Utilities certainly don’t want to own them any more than they want to own a customer’s refrigerator. And automakers resist the idea of battery swapping due to the warranty issues it might raise. But at least one company is betting big on the concept of third-party battery ownership.</p>
<p>Better Place’s business model is a combination of infrastructure—remote charging and battery swap stations—and software that supports communication among car, driver and utility. It’s a support service that ostensibly allows the EV to become more than just an urban runabout.</p>
<p>“Somewhere between 60 percent and 75 percent of all the energy that the average driver needs will probably be delivered at the home,” says Hugh McDermott, vice president for utility alliances at Better Place. “Another 10 percent to 20 percent can be delivered at the place of work.”</p>
<p>The swappable battery, he says, is the last piece of the puzzle.</p>
<p>“I’m in San Francisco,” McDermott says. “I want to know I can get to Tahoe for the weekend and not get stranded, so locating battery swap stations along key transport corridors is going to be part of the eventual deployment.”</p>
<p>Better Place has begun massive projects to bring its system to Israel and Denmark—both small, highly developed countries with strong state support for EVs. (Israel, in fact, is aiming for 100-percent EV adoption by 2020—about 2 million vehicles.) The company has projects announced for California and Hawaii, as well as Ontario, but McDermott admits the U.S. regulatory patchwork is a major problem.</p>
<p>“It’s challenging for us to operate in the U.S.,” he says. “There’s no coherent national policy on energy.”</p>
<p>Another problem is the system requires cooperation from automakers. Vehicles must be designed with batteries that are easily swapped from below. Nissan, through its alliance with Renault, has a relationship with Better Place in Israel and Denmark; Renault will deliver 100,000 battery-swappable EVs to Israel between 2011 and 2016. But at this point, Perry says Nissan has no similar plans for the United States.</p>
<p>Ford also has no current product plans for vehicles with swappable batteries. McDermott takes the domestic stiff arm in stride.</p>
<p>“Remember, this is a reset for many in the industry,” he says, referring to the first, aborted attempt to build electric vehicles, often referred to as EV 1.0.</p>
<p>“Resistance comes from a variety of things, as basic as DNA—they’re slow to move and slow to change—all the way to very calculated commercial interests,” he says. “Certain companies will publicly tell you battery swaps and EVs have no future at all whatsoever, but privately, behind the scenes, they are furiously trying to catch up. In the meantime they’re trying to extract the maximum value from platforms they’ve already invested in, such as fuel cell, hydrogen and hybrids. They’re trying to milk those investments while they catch up, but EVs crossed the watershed about a year ago.”</p>
<h4>Getting Customers to Care</h4>
<p>In the United States, the battery-swap issue is precisely the type of question that will have to be worked out in the market. If a viable third-party ownership model ends up working for batteries, that solution could lead to V2G technology.</p>
<p>“Vehicle-to-grid frankly is farther down the road,” says SCE’s Craver. “We see the promise of it, but not enough work has been done to understand the impact all the charging and decharging has on the life of the battery, the most expensive component of the vehicle.”</p>
<p>If someone else owns that expensive component, however, and if they can resolve technical concerns about V2G applications, then EVs rapidly would become more functional and valuable (<i>see “<a href="http://www.fortnightly.com/fortnightly/2010/06/ceo-forum-dealing-disruption">Dealing with Disruption–Electric Vehicles</a>”</i>). Effective inter-industry collaboration on standards in North American has created an EV market where meaningful competition on products and services is possible. Likewise, the utility industry’s growing need to engage customers in their electricity-buying habits might convince companies to invest more in EV-related infrastructure and marketing than they otherwise might.</p>
<p>“It will be interesting to see what dynamic will play out, because the vehicle is the most intimate appliance, the one customers care about the most,” says Duke’s Rowand. “It’s kind of hard to get customers engaged because they just don’t care that much about a refrigerator. But they care about their car. Ask anybody, they know what they paid when they filled up at the gas station last week.”</p>
<p>To the degree EVs help consumers connect the dots between their energy use patterns and the real-time cost of electricity, it could extend to the way they think about their entire energy profile and serve as a catalyst for utilities to deliver a new range of services.</p>
<p>“Will that awareness translate into the rest of the home?” Rowand says. “We definitely have an opportunity, especially in the early going. As people have a lot of interest and look for more information about vehicle performance, we’ll be looking at how we incorporate that into our customer communications, our energy efficiency programs, and our overall smart-grid communications with our customers.”</p>
<p>Automakers will keep close tabs on EV drivers, too, to find out what works, what doesn’t and just how much they actually want to interact with the vehicle and utility.</p>
<p>“We don’t want to overwhelm drivers with too much information,” says GM’s Gross. “We’re funny consumers, all of us, and we’ve got to look at the space with a level head. What do we really want to do with these vehicles? What are the best issues on the grid to go first? Maybe it’s just getting all the wind and all the solar we can and applying it to the vehicles as they charge.”</p>
<p>It’s a pivotal time for both industries, and the excitement surrounding EV space is palpable on both sides. Car companies and utilities recognize that collaborating on standards was just the beginning, and that they only will be seeing more of each other in years to come.</p>
<p>“We’re going to get our feet wet over time,” Gross says, “and we’re going to walk deeper and deeper into that water until we can take full advantage of swimming with the utility.”</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field-collection-container clearfix"><div class="field field-name-field-sidebar field-type-field-collection field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Sidebar:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="field-collection-view clearfix view-mode-full"><div class="entity entity-field-collection-item field-collection-item-field-sidebar clearfix">
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<div class="field field-name-field-sidebar-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Sidebar Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">EV Resurrection</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-sidebar-body field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Sidebar Body:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><!--smart_paging_autop_filter--><!--smart_paging_filter--><p>In the auto industry’s previous foray into the electric vehicle market, the major auto manufacturers offered a tiny handful of models, most of them available only in California. And just one car, the GM EV1, entered mass production—and only about 1,000 were built.</p><p>With such small numbers, the electric car was relatively easy to kill. But resurrected by new technologies and different market realities, today’s EVs are coming in waves.</p><p>“In the last year, about 120 different EV models were announced globally,” says Hugh McDermott, a vice president with electric vehicle-infrastructure company, Better Place. “Three dozen will be available in the North American markets alone over the next four years.”</p><p>And these aren’t just tiny urban commuters (like Daimler’s Smart ForTwo) or big-coin status symbols (like the Tesla Roadster or Venturi Fetish). A quick survey of manufacturers’ Web sites showed that every major global manufacturer, from Audi to Volkswagen, has mainstream- targeted EVs slated for production in the next two years. Ford’s first EV, a small commercial van called the Transit Connect, will be available this year in small numbers. Next year will see the company’s first passenger EV, the Focus Electric, followed by two next-generation plug-in hybrids in 2012. Ford expects that by 2020, between 10 and 25 percent of its vehicles will be electrified.</p><p>The much-anticipated Nissan Leaf is capacity constrained to 50,000 units globally for its first two years in production, but the company anticipates 25,000 pre-orders by the time the Leaf goes on sale in December 2010. A new EV plant in Tennessee will multiply those numbers in 2012.</p><p>“The capacity will be 200,000 battery packs and 150,000 vehicles,” says Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan. “We’re planning for 10 percent of our volume by 2020 to be pure EV. But that’s in the world of today. If there’s an oil shock, a run-up in gas prices, then things move a lot faster.”–<span><span class="bolditalic">SA</span></span></p></div></div></div> </div>
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</div></div><div class="field-item odd"><div class="field-collection-view clearfix view-mode-full"><div class="entity entity-field-collection-item field-collection-item-field-sidebar clearfix">
<div class="content">
<div class="field field-name-field-sidebar-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Sidebar Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Mobile Load</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-sidebar-body field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Sidebar Body:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><!--smart_paging_autop_filter--><!--smart_paging_filter--><p>Given the anticipated adoption rate over the next few years, the grid currently has enough generation capacity to meet EV demand (<i>see “Plugging In,” p.30</i>), but can it manage that capacity effectively?</p><p>“You have to use things like smart charging to balance the needs of users and the times of day when you’re going to create peaks on the grid,” says Will Cousins, who leads product development at software company GridPoint. “There’s not necessarily a need to build more power plants, but you do need to use what you have very carefully.”</p><p>GridPoint makes a set of software applications that manage when and how EVs in a utility’s service territory charge. It’s similar to any other demand-response software, with an important twist.</p><p>“Unlike air conditioners and water heaters, EVs get up and move,” Cousins says. “That’s one of the primary reasons we can’t apply the same technology that we’ve been using for traditional demand-side management. People expect to get in their car and go when they want to go.”</p><p>In a sense, GridPoint has to write EV software with two customers in mind. In addition to managing the utilities’ needs, the software has to live up to the expectations of the end-user. Being stranded at home with a depleted battery does not a satisfied customer make.</p><p>Although the first generation of EVs to come to market won’t have robust communication capacity, there’s enough networking potential in the charger and many on-board navigation systems to enable smart charging.</p><p>“It’s our hope that we see some of these technologies implemented for the first wave of vehicles that come to market,” Cousins says. “Plug-in vehicles are the sharp end of the spear for the smart grid, so what is the most compelling application people can deploy that drives benefit to utilities? Managing the new source of load that is electric vehicles could very well be that.”–<span><span class="bolditalic">SA</span></span></p></div></div></div> </div>
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</div></div><div class="field-item even"><div class="field-collection-view clearfix view-mode-full field-collection-view-final"><div class="entity entity-field-collection-item field-collection-item-field-sidebar clearfix">
<div class="content">
<div class="field field-name-field-sidebar-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Sidebar Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Beta testing Under Fire</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-sidebar-body field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Sidebar Body:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><!--smart_paging_autop_filter--><!--smart_paging_filter--><p>One of the chicken-and-egg dilemmas in developing EV technology is the fact that because the cars are not on the road yet, it’s very difficult for utilities to set up real-world pilot programs that will help them understand actual usage patterns, customer charging habits and the like.</p><p>“While the utilities have oodles of test hardware and pilot programs for smart meters and thermostats and networks and anything you can think of, they have almost no plug-in vehicle hardware from major vehicle manufacturers,” says Mark Duvall, Director of Electric Transportation at EPRI. “I would say there’s currently less than 50 plug-in vehicles in the hands of the utilities industry in the U.S.; and most of those are Ford Escape hybrids.”</p><p>That’s all about to change. With several EVs and plug-in hybrids coming to market in the next 6 to 12 months, utilities will be first in line. But that means they’ll be doing their own testing just as consumers are getting behind the wheel.</p><p>The first real-world tests of consumer EVs will happen on the West Coast. In particular, California likely will have the largest concentration of early adopters; true to stereotype, those Berkeley hippies, Napa wine snobs and activist movie stars are champing at the bit to get their EVs. And California also leads the nation in smart-meter installation, so utilities will be paying particular interest to how and to what extent EVs interact with the smart grid.</p><p>“EVs and smart meters are kind of hitting the deck at around the same time,” says Ted Craver, CEO of Southern California Edison. “We’re in the midst of installing the smart meters for our roughly five million customers. That’ll be completed in 2012.”</p><p>Software that’s being installed in those meters is capable of interface with home-area networks and ultimately with electric vehicles. And as a whole the industry is working to ensure EV-charging systems are fully interoperable with utility systems; in April the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) moved its work on EV standards into the realm of the smart grid—re-designating P1809, its draft EV standard, as P2030.1. “We believe this move will foster a more coordinated, integrated relationship between [IEEE’s EV and smart-grid standards efforts], sparking new smart-grid technology innovation and development,” stated Siri Jodha Khasla, chair of IEEE’s Standards Coordinating Committee. Similar efforts are taking place under the auspices of the U.S. Commerce Dept.’s National Institute on Standards &amp; Technology (NIST).</p><p>With the technologies moving toward interoperability, Craver expects Edison will be able to talk with EVs and chargers to measure use of each car by 2015. “The vehicles themselves have a fair amount of electronics on board for interfacing with chargers,” Craver says. “So they’re mutually reinforcing what we’re doing.”</p><p>But despite the spirit of collaboration between car companies and utilities on standards, the industries could do a better job of hands-on testing, Duvall says.</p><p>“Some of the companies—GM and Ford—have really reached out to the utility industry in a meaningful way,” he says. “Others, like Nissan, are going around and forming partnerships with municipalities and individual utilities. I think that’s a positive step, but these industries really don’t have each other on speed dial yet.”–<span><span class="bolditalic">SA</span></span></p><p> </p></div></div></div> </div>
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</div></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"><h3 class="field-label">Category (Actual): </h3><ul class="links"><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-0"><a href="/article-categories/evs-storage-0">EVs &amp; Storage</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-field-members-only field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Viewable to All?:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-featured field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Is Featured?:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-picture field-type-image field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Image Picture:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.fortnightly.com/sites/default/files/article_images/1006/images/1006-FEA1.jpg" width="1500" height="1134" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-fortnightly-40 field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Is Fortnightly 40?:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-law-lawyers field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Is Law &amp; Lawyers:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix">
<div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div>
<div class="field-items">
<a href="/tags/better-place">Better Place</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/dc">DC</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/duke-energy">Duke Energy</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/electric-power-research">Electric Power Research</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/electric-power-research-institute">Electric Power Research Institute</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/epri">EPRI</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/ev">EV</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/evs">EVs</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/ford">Ford</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/infrastructure">Infrastructure</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/microsoft">Microsoft</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/network">Network</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/sce">SCE</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/solar-panels">solar panels</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/southern-california-edison">Southern California Edison</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/storage">storage</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/technology">Technology</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/ted-craver">Ted Craver</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/v2g">V2G</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/vehicle-grid-0">Vehicle-to-grid</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/wal-mart">Wal-Mart</a> </div>
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Tue, 01 Jun 2010 04:00:00 +0000puradmin14213 at http://www.fortnightly.comEV Resurrectionhttp://www.fortnightly.com/fortnightly/2008/07/ev-resurrection
<div class="field field-name-field-import-byline field-type-text-long field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Byline:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Michael T. Burr</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-category field-type-text field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">People in Power</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-bio field-type-text-long field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Author Bio:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><b>Michael T. Burr</b> is <i>Fortnightly’s</i> editor-in-chief. Email him at <a href="mailto:burr@pur.com">burr@pur.com</a>.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-import-volume field-type-node-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Magazine Volume:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Fortnightly Magazine - July 2008</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>When Chelsea Sexton was 17 years old, she took a job with Saturn, hawking cars to help pay for college. She was good at her job, and three years later she found herself involved with GM’s most exciting new project: bringing the EV-1 electric car to market.</p>
<p>She threw herself into the mission, to the point of marrying an EV-1 service technician. But in 2001, GM abruptly killed the EV-1 program and dismissed most of its personnel—including Sexton.</p>
<p>What GM didn’t realize was that it had created a monster, which was now set loose in the world.</p>
<p>Sexton went on to become one of the country’s leading plug-in vehicle advocates. She led protests against GM’s decision to scrap thousands of EV-1s, and appeared in the Oscar-nominated film <i>Who Killed the Electric Car? </i>She formed advocacy group Plug-In America, and led the creation of the Automotive X PRIZE in 2005.</p>
<p><i>Fortnightly</i> caught up with Sexton in June to discuss the electric vehicle market, and utilities’ role in developing it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Fortnightly: Tell me about Plug-In America. What have been the group’s most significant achievements? </b></p>
<p><b>Sexton: </b>The most visible progress is all the plug-in cars that have been announced by automakers. A few years ago not a single company was working on it, and now we have at least a dozen.</p>
<p>The most important thing we do is to work with consumers, teaching them about what’s possible and getting them to ask for it. Automakers are saying people aren’t asking for electric cars by the millions, so the demand isn’t strong enough. But people won’t ask for what they don’t know is possible. Nobody wanted an iPhone before Apple created it.</p>
<p>Also we work with the auto industry and various utilities, teaching about electric vehicles and helping companies interface with each other and the markets. We also work with lawmakers to develop policies and mandates that support this movement, as well as things like electric codes and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) standards.</p>
<p><b>Fortnightly: Do automakers see this as a real market? </b></p>
<p><b>Sexton: </b>They’re not entirely convinced, but companies are starting to see that if they want to save themselves, particularly the domestic automakers, they have to build cars people want to buy.</p>
<p>There’s a saying in the auto industry: “It’s not real until it’s in your driveway.” But there are a lot of concept cars out there and several have been approved for production. We’re guardedly optimistic these cars will be available in the 2010 time frame.</p>
<p><b>Fortnightly: People are shocked now by $4 a gallon gas prices, but won’t they get over it and maybe change their driving habits, rather than give up their gas-powered cars? </b></p>
<p><b>Sexton: </b>When GM was building the EV-1, people said, “When gas hits $3 a gallon people will change.” Then it hit $3 a gallon and people said it would have to hit $5 a gallon. The fact is people won’t change if they don’t have the option.</p>
<p>It’s true that electric cars aren’t for everybody, but neither is any particular gas car on the road today. The relevant question is whether there are enough people who want a given car to make a business out of it. Dodge makes a business out of selling 2,000 Vipers a year. The entire Hummer product line turns out 30,000 cars. It’s a niche. But the hybrid market started out as a niche, with Honda and Toyota selling 7,000 units a year between them. Now they can’t build them fast enough. People are making different decisions due to gas prices.</p>
<p><b>Fortnightly: Hybrid vehicles carry a significant premium and that doesn’t seem likely to change any time soon. Won’t that limit the market for plug-ins? </b></p>
<p><b>Sexton: </b>DVD players were expensive when they first came out too, and now you can buy them for $50. Plug-in vehicles will be more expensive than standard cars at the outset, but how much more will depend on the vehicle. Toyota is saying its plug-in with a seven-mile electric range will cost about $1,000 more. The Volt will carry a premium with about $10,000 worth of batteries in it. Right now I’m sitting next to a Tesla, and that’s a lot more expensive—about $100,000.</p>
<p>People want them anyway. Some paid $5,000 over the sticker price for a Prius when they came out.</p>
<p><b>Fortnightly: Apart from economies of scale and cheaper batteries, what would cause electric cars to become more affordable for the rest of us who can’t or won’t pay the premium? </b></p>
<p><b>Sexton: </b>I’m seeing enthusiasm for financial models that would facilitate the market. Shai Agassi [formerly a division president at SAP] formed Project Better Place and raised $200 million in venture capital money to address this exact point. Under his business model, you get the car cheap and pay a subscription fee for the electricity you use. You swap out the batteries at charging stations. The total cost of ownership is about the same in the end, but it’s easier to get people into the car if you reduce the up-front cost. <i>[Editor’s note: In May, Project Better Place and its partners, Renault and Nissan, unveiled a prototype electric car with swappable batteries.] </i></p>
<p><b>Fortnightly: Some utilities show real interest in electric vehicles as a growth market, but others seem to view it as just a curiosity. Is that changing? </b></p>
<p><b>Sexton: </b>Utilities are all over the map on this. Some have been wildly interested for many years. Austin Energy started a whole campaign, Plug-In Partners. Southern Company and Virginia Power got interested quite early and got a little burned because they installed a ton of chargers throughout their area so they’d be ready when the cars would arrive. But now Progress Energy and Duke are very interested in V2G.</p>
<p>You might expect utilities’ interest to be concentrated in areas where people are more environmentally conscious, but it’s not. We’re seeing interest among all types of utilities, all over the country.</p>
<p><b>Fortnightly: What should utilities be doing to help advance the market for electric vehicles? Will it take regulatory changes? </b></p>
<p><b>Sexton: </b>It’s important for the utility industry to support vehicle policies and infrastructure policies that will help develop the market. But some things utilities can do by themselves, without regulatory changes. One is time-of-use rates. You don’t necessarily want people plugging in their cars at 1:00 in the afternoon, and one way to limit that is by offering TOU rates to encourage them to charge vehicles when rates are low <i>(see sidebar, “Smart Charging”)</i>.</p>
<p><b>Fortnightly: What about building smart-grid and V2G infrastructure? </b></p>
<p><b>Sexton: </b>In general I think utilities should allow the gadgets to drive the demand for infrastructure. In the first generation, the market for cars will pull the infrastructure along.</p>
<p>With V2G, where you need the infrastructure in place to use the car’s capability [to store power for the utility]. Consumers will want to do that, but you don’t need special infrastructure to get plug-in cars on the road.</p>
<p>Also, utilities should keep in mind that vehicles are a right-brain decision. There’s a lot of passion behind the choice to purchase a particular car. People want to be recognized for what they drive, and they drive the car that reflects their values.</p>
<p>That’s a discussion we’ve had with utility people. Green power marketing and getting people to consume less energy is a challenge. Part of the problem is that as a customer, your neighbor doesn’t know you’ve made that choice. But if you buy a Prius, everyone knows it.</p>
<p>Utilities provide reliability, redundancy and security. That’s great, but as far as most people are concerned, they get their electricity out of the wall and they’re not interested in paying more so the utility can rehabilitate the grid. But once they own an electric car, people become much more aware of where their electricity is coming from. About half of the people who own electric cars also have solar panels on their homes.</p>
<p>If utilities help to get electric cars out there, consumers will see the value of the infrastructure, and it will create market pull for what utilities have to offer.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field-collection-container clearfix"><div class="field field-name-field-sidebar field-type-field-collection field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Sidebar:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="field-collection-view clearfix view-mode-full field-collection-view-final"><div class="entity entity-field-collection-item field-collection-item-field-sidebar clearfix">
<div class="content">
<div class="field field-name-field-sidebar-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Sidebar Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Smart Charging</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-sidebar-body field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Sidebar Body:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><!--smart_paging_autop_filter--><!--smart_paging_filter--><p>Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technologies promise energy storage capacity for utilities, but a more important step toward electrifying transportation might be less complicated—and nearly as powerful.</p><p>“First and foremost, we need to control the load-side behavior of electric vehicles,” says John Clark, CEO of technology company V2Green. “We need to avoid the classic problem of having cars charging at the peak, so smart charging needs to come along as vehicles roll off the assembly line.”</p><p>Once that happens, smart charging can become a powerful utility tool, Clark says. “If you can both predict and shed load down to the feeder level, it’s the same thing as being able to generate power. All the value-added services you can get with V2G you can also get with smart charging. You just need a bigger fleet.”–<span><span class="bolditalic">MTB </span></span></p><p> </p></div></div></div> </div>
</div>
</div></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"><h3 class="field-label">Category (Actual): </h3><ul class="links"><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-0"><a href="/article-categories/evs-storage-1">EVs &amp; Storage</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-field-members-only field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Viewable to All?:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-article-featured field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Is Featured?:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-department field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix"><h3 class="field-label">Department: </h3><ul class="links"><li class="taxonomy-term-reference-0"><a href="/department/people-power">People In Power</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-field-image-picture field-type-image field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Image Picture:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="http://www.fortnightly.com/sites/default/files/article_images/0807/images/0807-PIP.jpg" width="1001" height="816" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-fortnightly-40 field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Is Fortnightly 40?:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-law-lawyers field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Is Law &amp; Lawyers:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above clearfix">
<div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div>
<div class="field-items">
<a href="/tags/apple">Apple</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/austin-energy">Austin Energy</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/better-place">Better Place</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/ev">EV</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/progress">Progress</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/progress-energy">Progress Energy</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/solar-panels">solar panels</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/southern-company">Southern Company</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/tesla">Tesla</a><span class="pur_comma">, </span><a href="/tags/v2g">V2G</a> </div>
</div>
Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0000puradmin14285 at http://www.fortnightly.com